Astounding Science Fiction (British edition) — page 8: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

6 ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION very quiet and said nothing about where they had been; sometimes they were incapable of speech. It wouidn’t do for the chief of Central Records to have a relative in Fieldstone. Thornberg punched but- tons for half an hour, erasing, chang- ing. It was a tough job—he had to go back several generations, altering lines of descent. But when he was through, Jimmy Obrenowicz was no relation whatsoever to the Thorn- bergs. And I thought the world of that kid. But I’m not doing it for myself, Jimmy. It’s for Jack. When the cops go through your file, later today no doubt, I can’t let them find out you’re related to Cap- tain Thornberg on Venus and a friend of his father. He slapped the switch which re- turned the spool to its place in the memory bank. With this act do I disown thee. After that he sat for a while, relish- ing the quiet of the booth and the clean impersonality of the instru- ments. He didn’t even want to smoke. So now they were going to give every citizen a number, tattooed on him no doubt. One number for every- thing. Thornberg foresaw popular slang referring to the numbers as “brands,” and Security cracking down on those who used the term. Disloyal language. Well, the underground was danger- ous. It was supported by foreign coun- tries who didn’t like an American- dominated world—at least, not one dominated by today’s kind of Amer- ica, though once U.S.A. had meant “Hope.” The rebels were said to have their own base out in space somewhere, and to have honeycombed the coun- try with their agents. It could be. Their propaganda was _ subtle—we don’t want to overthrow the nation, we only want to liberate it, we want to restore the Bill of Rights. It could attract a lot of unstable souls. But Security's spy hunt was bound to drag in any number of citizens who had never meditated treason. Like Jimmy—or had Jimmy been an under- grounder after all? You never knew. Nobody ever told you. There was a sour taste in Thorn- berg’s mouth. He grimaced. A line of a song came back to him: “I hate you one and all.” How had it gone? They used to sing it in his college days. Something about a very bitter charac- ter who’d committed a murder. Oh, yes. “Sam Hall.” How did it go, now? You needed a gravelly bass to sing it properly. “Oh, my name is Samuel Hall, Samuel Fail. Yes, my name is Samuel Hall, Samuel Fall. Oh, my name is Samuel Hall, And I hate you one and all, Yow’re a gang of muckers all, damn your hide.” That was it. And Sam Hall was about to swing for murder. He re- membered now. He felt like Sam Hall himself. He looked at the machine and wondered how many Sam Halls were in its memory banks. Idly, postponing his return to work, he punched for the file—name, Samuel Hall, no other specifications. The ma- chine mumbled to itself. Presently it spewed out a file of papers, micro- printed on the spot from the memory © banks. Complete dossier on every Sam Hall, living and dead, from the time the records began to be kept. Thornberg chucked the papers down the incinerator slot. “Oh, I killed a man, they say, so they say—” The impulse was blinding in its savagery. They were dealing with Jimmy at this moment, probably pounding him over the kidneys, and he, Thornberg, sat here waiting for Comichookssecom